How would you redesign the thief?

[Orpheal.8263]

Stolen Skills

Following 3 Stolen Skills should the Thief and its Specs randomly receive under this Concept when stealing from Enemy Players in PvP and WvW:

Warrior1) Whirling Axe = Spin yourself around with Axes in your hands and deal Damage over time to all your surrounding direct nearby foes. You can move while spinning and compared to the Warrior Version has each hit here also a Chance to cause Bleedings of 50% If you steal from an Axe Warrior, he wil lbe forced to switch his Weapon Set.2) Banner of Discipline = Steal a Banner of Discipline from the Warrior, which you can use then to buff you and your allies with increased Precision and Ferocity and aside of the Warriror Version, does this stolen Banner grant you and allies also Vigor inside of its effect range periodically every few seconds.3) Tripple Shot= Steal the Longbow of the Warrior and perform with it instead of just a Dual Shot a Tripple Shot againstt your Target, as replaced AA until you run out of stolen Arrows (12). So you can perform 4x Tripple Shot, then you return to your own Weapon. If you steal from a Longbow Warrior, he will be forced to switch his Weapon Set.

Guardian1) Head Cracker = Daze your hit foe with your stolen Mace. Causes unlike the original Skill of the Guardian also Confusion and if you steal from a mace guardian, it forces him to switch the Weapon Set.2) Deflective Shield = Reflect back any incoming attack of your enemy with 150% of its original power back to your foe within its 2 seconds of Block Time. If you steal from a Shield Guardien, it will force him to switch his Weapon Set.3) Blade of Purity = Leap to your your Target foe, causing AoE Damage at the Target Spot up to 5 Targets, while giving up to 1 of your Conditions per hit Target to your hit Targets. If you steal from a Greastword Guardian it will force him to switch his Weapon Set.

Revenant1) Mist Assault = Immitate the Revenants Skill of Unrelenting Assault agaisnt your Target Enemy with their stolen Swords. Forces sword using Revenentsto switch the Weapon Sets2) Windmill Strike = Immitate the Revenants Skill of Surge of the Mists against your Target Enemy with their stolen Staves. Forces Staff using Revenants to switch the Weapon Sets3) Shadow Rift = Immitate the Revenants Skill Temporal Rift agaisnt your Target Enemy with their stolen Axes. Forces Axe using Revenants to switch the Weapon Sets.

Engineer1) Gunk Grenade =Throw a stolen Gunk Grenade, causing at its ground target random conditions periodically.2) Stolen Elixier C = Steal an Elixier C from the Engineer, which will convert all your Conditions into random Boons and additionally refills all your Initiative.3) Stolen Flamethrower = Steal a Flamethrower from your Engineer Enemy. If this happens, while hes using a Flamethrower on you, his utility Skill will get deactivated and become unuseable, until you have used the Flamethrower and its fuel is over, or you throw it away to return to your own skills.

Ranger1) Healing Seed = Use a stolen healing Seed to create a periodical Healing Area, which grants Regeneration and Removes Conditions, while addtionally increasign inside of its Range for you your Healing Power and those of your Allies., unlike the original version of the Ranger.2) Stalker's Strike = Use the stolen Dagger of the Ranger to strike your Target with it, causing poison and additionally unlike the original Torment to your foe, while evading incoming attacks. If you steal from a Dagger ranger, this will force him to switch his Weapno Set.3) Bonfire = Use the stolen Torch of the Ranger to create a Bonfire to set surrounding foes on fire, causign Burning, while creatign a Fire field that can be used by you for Combo Effects like Area Might for example. If you steal from a Torch Ranger, this will force him to switch his Weapon Set

Thief1) Blinding Tuft = Use this Skill to gain some Stacks of Stealth, while blinding nearby foes. The amount of Stacks of Stealth receives a Bonus Stacks per blinded foe.2) Dancing Daggers = Steal a pair of Dancing Daggers to throw, causing with them Cripple and Torment on hit foes they bounce to. Forces Dagger using Thieves to switch to their other Weapon Sets, if you steal from them while they use Daggers.3) Bulletstorm = Steal some Pistols and unload them agaist your Target Enemy. If you steal from an Enemy Thief that uses Pistols, this will force him to switch his Weapon Sets.

Elementalist1) Stolen Frostbow = Steal a conjured Frostbow from your Elementalist Enemy with one charge to perform a Freeze Shot, which will immobilize your foe, until he breaks itself out of the ice prison by using AA until the ice breaks.2) Stolen Lava Axe = Steal a conjured Lava Axe from your Elementalist Enemy with one charge to perform a Phoenix Tomahawk, which will damage and burn foes on its way to your target and back to you, where it will grant you Regeneration and Vigor then.3) Stolen Rock Shield = Steal a conjured Rock Shield from your Elementalist Enemy, with one charge to perform Stoneflesh Aura, letting you mitigate the next incoming 3 hits, while causing with your next attack also Petrification to make your foe immobile for 1s.

Mesmer1) Orb of Plasma = Gain all Boons for some time.2) Chaosbringer = Steal the Staff of the Mesmer, letting you perform Chaos Storms. If you steal from a Staff using Mesmer, this will force him to switch Weapon Sets.3) Blurred Frenzy Steal the Sword of the Mesmer, letting you perform Blurred Frenzy to deal damage, while auto evading incoming attacks. Forces the Sword Mesmer to switch his Weapon Set.

Necromancer1) Skull of Death = Fear all nearby foes for up to 2 seconds. Your version causes additionally Torment in that time.2) Vampiric Strikes = Steal the Dagger of the Necromancer, to gain Vampiric Strikes, an automatic Buff, which lets your next 3 attacks leech health from your foes you hit. Forces the Dagger Necromancer to switch his Weapon Set.3) Mark of Soul Steal = Steal the Staff of the Necromancer, to perform a Mark of Soul Steal, forcing this way the Staff necromancer to switch his Weapon Set. Enemies that Enter the Mark of Soul Steal become stunned for 2 seconds and lose in that time all health regenerating effects from Boons, Skills and Traits, transferring them in that time to you instead.

[Crab Fear.1624]

I would redesign the thief like this:

• Get rid of the initiative system
• melee weapon skill 2 -5 get cooldowns
• introduce a secondary effect on melee weapons called chain attack . for example a successful hit on 1 would unlock chain 2, and successful hit on 2 would unlock chain 3, and so forth. same cooldown as the regular skill, but a limited time to use the chain attack
• possibly add a effect called momentum for bigger chains like 1-5 for bigger dmage and not rewarding chains of 3-5, or 4-5 as much
• shortbow 2-4 get an arrow (ammo kit, maybe max 2 arrows for each skill with icd for each) (some skill effects would need to change to compensate)
• rifle similiar to shortbow with ammo
• increase base cooldown of steal to 35 secs
• add a third profession skill called borrow that allows the thief to target allies instead

because the skills would not be spammable their effects would need to change. a little more defense or offense built into them.

if a player does not use the chain skill, the normal skill does not go on cooldown (the chain skill cooldown at this point would be waiting for the starting skill to recharge)

Skills would be useable in any order and the skills have a normal attack, they can be upgraded to chain attack effect by chaining skill use. So not chaining would not prevent you from attacking or using weapon skills

[omgdracula.6345]

if a player does not use the chain skill, the normal skill does not go on cooldown (the chain skill cooldown at this point would be waiting for the starting skill to recharge)

Skills would be useable in any order and the skills have a normal attack, they can be upgraded to chain attack effect by chaining skill use. So not chaining would not prevent you from attacking or using weapon skills

This part is especially silly. Due to blocks, evades that are abundant this would be super crippling to a thief especially melee builds. Also why would you even bother with the second part? No one in their right mind would skip out on bonuses going out of order for the off chance a later skill working but then ruining the chain again crippling them momentarily until their chain is fully recharged.

[BlaqueFyre.5678]

First redesign Shadow Arts, so that it gives Bonuses upon entering and leaving stealth, not from camping stealth.

Second rework how stealth stacks by lowering the maximum stack limit.

Third make skills like CnD have a Higher baseline Stealth duration increase to 4 or 5 seconds baseline, reason is it requires the Thief to be in Melee range and to have the attack land to even apply Stealth.

Fourth either make Preparedness baseline or remove it altogether and rebalance All Thief Initiative costs, having every Initiative cost being balanced around Preparedness as is currently the case is highly detrimental.

Rework all weapons and limit Hybrid weapons kits make weapons have clear defined roles and damage types.

[saerni.2584]

@BlaqueFyre.5678 said:First redesign Shadow Arts, so that it gives Bonuses upon entering and leaving stealth, not from camping stealth.

Second rework how stealth stacks by lowering the maximum stack limit.

Third make skills like CnD have a Higher baseline Stealth duration increase to 4 or 5 seconds baseline, reason is it requires the Thief to be in Melee range and to have the attack land to even apply Stealth.

Fourth either make Preparedness baseline or remove it altogether and rebalance All Thief Initiative costs, having every Initiative cost being balanced around Preparedness as is currently the case is highly detrimental.

Rework all weapons and limit Hybrid weapons kits make weapons have clear defined roles and damage types.

Agree that a reworked SA could make thief more versatile and less able to camp stealth. Shadows Embrace could remove one condition on entering stealth and one on landing stealth attacks. Cloaked in Shadow could heal and provide initiative on entering stealth and on landing stealth attacks. Might be a buff to some but also would nerf builds that camp stealth by not letting them cleanse/heal passively the entire time.

Just a slight disagreement: although most weapons are somewhat “hybrid” given the options for condi application in thief builds, that does mean less viability in general. P/D is basically the example of a condi weapon set. It has bleed on auto, torment on 3 and 4 and poison on 2 if traited. Overall, I’d say that other sets aren’t badly performing based on incidental condi access. Power scaling on that set could go up slightly but overall I’d say the current setup reflects what you want already.

[DeceiverX.8361]

@Orpheal.8263 said:

Stolen Skills

Following 3 Stolen Skills should the Thief and its Specs randomly receive under this Concept when stealing from Enemy Players in PvP and WvW:

Warrior1) Whirling Axe = Spin yourself around with Axes in your hands and deal Damage over time to all your surrounding direct nearby foes. You can move while spinning and compared to the Warrior Version has each hit here also a Chance to cause Bleedings of 50% If you steal from an Axe Warrior, he wil lbe forced to switch his Weapon Set.2) Banner of Discipline = Steal a Banner of Discipline from the Warrior, which you can use then to buff you and your allies with increased Precision and Ferocity and aside of the Warriror Version, does this stolen Banner grant you and allies also Vigor inside of its effect range periodically every few seconds.3) Tripple Shot= Steal the Longbow of the Warrior and perform with it instead of just a Dual Shot a Tripple Shot againstt your Target, as replaced AA until you run out of stolen Arrows (12). So you can perform 4x Tripple Shot, then you return to your own Weapon. If you steal from a Longbow Warrior, he will be forced to switch his Weapon Set.

Guardian1) Head Cracker = Daze your hit foe with your stolen Mace. Causes unlike the original Skill of the Guardian also Confusion and if you steal from a mace guardian, it forces him to switch the Weapon Set.2) Deflective Shield = Reflect back any incoming attack of your enemy with 150% of its original power back to your foe within its 2 seconds of Block Time. If you steal from a Shield Guardien, it will force him to switch his Weapon Set.3) Blade of Purity = Leap to your your Target foe, causing AoE Damage at the Target Spot up to 5 Targets, while giving up to 1 of your Conditions per hit Target to your hit Targets. If you steal from a Greastword Guardian it will force him to switch his Weapon Set.

Revenant1) Mist Assault = Immitate the Revenants Skill of Unrelenting Assault agaisnt your Target Enemy with their stolen Swords. Forces sword using Revenentsto switch the Weapon Sets2) Windmill Strike = Immitate the Revenants Skill of Surge of the Mists against your Target Enemy with their stolen Staves. Forces Staff using Revenants to switch the Weapon Sets3) Shadow Rift = Immitate the Revenants Skill Temporal Rift agaisnt your Target Enemy with their stolen Axes. Forces Axe using Revenants to switch the Weapon Sets.

Engineer1) Gunk Grenade =Throw a stolen Gunk Grenade, causing at its ground target random conditions periodically.2) Stolen Elixier C = Steal an Elixier C from the Engineer, which will convert all your Conditions into random Boons and additionally refills all your Initiative.3) Stolen Flamethrower = Steal a Flamethrower from your Engineer Enemy. If this happens, while hes using a Flamethrower on you, his utility Skill will get deactivated and become unuseable, until you have used the Flamethrower and its fuel is over, or you throw it away to return to your own skills.

Ranger1) Healing Seed = Use a stolen healing Seed to create a periodical Healing Area, which grants Regeneration and Removes Conditions, while addtionally increasign inside of its Range for you your Healing Power and those of your Allies., unlike the original version of the Ranger.2) Stalker's Strike = Use the stolen Dagger of the Ranger to strike your Target with it, causing poison and additionally unlike the original Torment to your foe, while evading incoming attacks. If you steal from a Dagger ranger, this will force him to switch his Weapno Set.3) Bonfire = Use the stolen Torch of the Ranger to create a Bonfire to set surrounding foes on fire, causign Burning, while creatign a Fire field that can be used by you for Combo Effects like Area Might for example. If you steal from a Torch Ranger, this will force him to switch his Weapon Set

Thief1) Blinding Tuft = Use this Skill to gain some Stacks of Stealth, while blinding nearby foes. The amount of Stacks of Stealth receives a Bonus Stacks per blinded foe.2) Dancing Daggers = Steal a pair of Dancing Daggers to throw, causing with them Cripple and Torment on hit foes they bounce to. Forces Dagger using Thieves to switch to their other Weapon Sets, if you steal from them while they use Daggers.3) Bulletstorm = Steal some Pistols and unload them agaist your Target Enemy. If you steal from an Enemy Thief that uses Pistols, this will force him to switch his Weapon Sets.

Elementalist1) Stolen Frostbow = Steal a conjured Frostbow from your Elementalist Enemy with one charge to perform a Freeze Shot, which will immobilize your foe, until he breaks itself out of the ice prison by using AA until the ice breaks.2) Stolen Lava Axe = Steal a conjured Lava Axe from your Elementalist Enemy with one charge to perform a Phoenix Tomahawk, which will damage and burn foes on its way to your target and back to you, where it will grant you Regeneration and Vigor then.3) Stolen Rock Shield = Steal a conjured Rock Shield from your Elementalist Enemy, with one charge to perform Stoneflesh Aura, letting you mitigate the next incoming 3 hits, while causing with your next attack also Petrification to make your foe immobile for 1s.

Mesmer1) Orb of Plasma = Gain all Boons for some time.2) Chaosbringer = Steal the Staff of the Mesmer, letting you perform Chaos Storms. If you steal from a Staff using Mesmer, this will force him to switch Weapon Sets.3) Blurred Frenzy Steal the Sword of the Mesmer, letting you perform Blurred Frenzy to deal damage, while auto evading incoming attacks. Forces the Sword Mesmer to switch his Weapon Set.

Necromancer1) Skull of Death = Fear all nearby foes for up to 2 seconds. Your version causes additionally Torment in that time.2) Vampiric Strikes = Steal the Dagger of the Necromancer, to gain Vampiric Strikes, an automatic Buff, which lets your next 3 attacks leech health from your foes you hit. Forces the Dagger Necromancer to switch his Weapon Set.3) Mark of Soul Steal = Steal the Staff of the Necromancer, to perform a Mark of Soul Steal, forcing this way the Staff necromancer to switch his Weapon Set. Enemies that Enter the Mark of Soul Steal become stunned for 2 seconds and lose in that time all health regenerating effects from Boons, Skills and Traits, transferring them in that time to you instead.

RNG is awful and should be killed in fire.

Being able to calculate killing a ranger by stealing Whirling Axe from a warrior to reflect its rapid fire or kill a necro by stealing from a ranger is a big part of smart play.

The stolen skills are generally in really good spots right now. I'd only change ele and engi steals because those two and only those two are pretty terrible.

[cyberzombie.7348]

Traits/Skills-Give Ankle Shots have a 20% damage bonus and the cripple chance to 100%-Sundering Strikes giving either 10 vulnerability stack or doubling the duration.-Get rid of the cd for stealth attack.-Reduce Improvisation cd to 2-5 sec or just completely remove the cd.-Swap Leeching Venoms with Revealed Training-Bring back Long Reach, and Replace Last Refuge with Shadow Equilibrium.-Increase the velocity of Scorpion Wire-Increase the duration of Ice Drake and Devourer venoms or reduce the cd-Make steal a teleport instead of a shadowstep.

For PVE-Allow to thieves to break into houses and commit burglary at the consequence of receiving negative karma.-Steal would have a chance to coins from enemy npcs. The effect will occur only once per npc.

[Orpheal.8263]

@"DeceiverX.8361"

I have to disagree here... here in the case of this, having only 1 single Steal Skill per Class has nothing to do with smart play, it makes the Thief only predictable, because your enemies will exactly always know, what you gonna do next, if you have stolen from Class X.People are not dumb... when they see that you have stolen from a Warrior and in the near is also a Ranger, as a smart Ranger Player I will always now that I have to fight a Thief with my Longbow cautiously and shoot them Rapidfires only, when I'm sure, that they can't be reflected back. If I'm not sure, I'll try to lure the usage with other ranged attacks first, then comes the burst when the Whirling Axes have been wasted on an other much weaker attack and not been used while I try to burst down the thief with rapidfire.

But if there would be now the chance to receive 1 out of 3 different Steal Skills now, that would make the Thief in combat instantly 66% less predictable, cause they have now 2 additional more possible skills thesy can steal from you, from which you don't know, what he got, making it now less predictable for the ranger player to react in general on the situation, giving Steal Skills more of the Surprise Effect, that they should have.It isn't also so, as if RNG elements wouldn't already exist elsewhere in combat.. we have also skills which remove Conditions by RNG, we have skills that give boons randomly, we have skills that give Conditions randomly.RNG can be, if used smartly also be a balancing method for Skills. Certain Steal Skills are also too overpowered, when its guaranteed that the Thief receives them 100% of all the time.. like for example receiving always from Mesmers their Globs of Ectoplasm to receive long lasting all boons everytime they steal from a Mesmer.But if it would be now only a 33% Chance to obtain a Glob of Ectoplasm, that Steal Skill would be more balanced, without that the Skills needs to be dumbed down for that extra and nerfed into oblivion like non smart people would surely suggest it first, what should be done with such skills that are in their view overpowered, or it would be Anets usual skill treatment of just juggling with numbers of skills and traits, cause that has been ANets "balancing way" for the last 6 years mostly, that they always make only number changes on skills and traits in 95% of all cases, instead of if neccessary - mechanic changes, like adding mechanics, or removing them, or changing them out completely if it must be even.

[BobbyT.7192]

@Orpheal.8263 said:@"DeceiverX.8361"

I have to disagree here... here in the case of this, having only 1 single Steal Skill per Class has nothing to do with smart play, it makes the Thief only predictable, because your enemies will exactly always know, what you gonna do next, if you have stolen from Class X.People are not dumb... when they see that you have stolen from a Warrior and in the near is also a Ranger, as a smart Ranger Player I will always now that I have to fight a Thief with my Longbow cautiously and shoot them Rapidfires only, when I'm sure, that they can't be reflected back. If I'm not sure, I'll try to lure the usage with other ranged attacks first, then comes the burst when the Whirling Axes have been wasted on an other much weaker attack and not been used while I try to burst down the thief with rapidfire.

But if there would be now the chance to receive 1 out of 3 different Steal Skills now, that would make the Thief in combat instantly 66% less predictable, cause they have now 2 additional more possible skills thesy can steal from you, from which you don't know, what he got, making it now less predictable for the ranger player to react in general on the situation, giving Steal Skills more of the Surprise Effect, that they should have.It isn't also so, as if RNG elements wouldn't already exist elsewhere in combat.. we have also skills which remove Conditions by RNG, we have skills that give boons randomly, we have skills that give Conditions randomly.RNG can be, if used smartly also be a balancing method for Skills. Certain Steal Skills are also too overpowered, when its guaranteed that the Thief receives them 100% of all the time.. like for example receiving always from Mesmers their Globs of Ectoplasm to receive long lasting all boons everytime they steal from a Mesmer.But if it would be now only a 33% Chance to obtain a Glob of Ectoplasm, that Steal Skill would be more balanced, without that the Skills needs to be dumbed down for that extra and nerfed into oblivion like non smart people would surely suggest it first, what should be done with such skills that are in their view overpowered, or it would be Anets usual skill treatment of just juggling with numbers of skills and traits, cause that has been ANets "balancing way" for the last 6 years mostly, that they always make only number changes on skills and traits in 95% of all cases, instead of if neccessary - mechanic changes, like adding mechanics, or removing them, or changing them out completely if it must be even.

Generally most rng skills will either have a main non rng effect (engie’s tool belt skill that creates a wall that blocks projectiles), or a skill that the rng options follow the same theme (chaos armour giving defensive boon)Plus most boon and condi removals will either follow the last in/first out rule, (therefore not random) or have a specific order of removal (ex: Larcenous Strike)

RNG Skills that don’t follow those above generally perform fairly poorly.

When the game was in beta, thieves stolen worked like your suggestion, and it was pretty bad then, it got so much better when they changed it to 1 skill per class

[Orpheal.8263]

Can't say much to that, cause I wasn't able to play the Beta, but fact is, alot has changed since then.You can't compare the game of now, with the game of how it was over 6 years ago in its beta state - apples and orangesA true thief is able to adapt to the situation and improvisate with what you steal.There's not much improvisation in it, when you always know exactly what you will receive from a steal as if you'd be some kind of fortune teller who can look into the future and can predict 100% accurate always what he will get from a steal.

Aside of that I'm pretty sure, the way how it worked in beta, didn't have like I propose also the feature of forcing enemies to switch their weapon sets, cause I would have definetely heard of it, if such a feature would have not found its way into the final game version on release...However, I understand that people dislike RNG... but RNG mechanics in combat systems are sometimes a neccessary evil, if you want to keep things balanced, to make sure that certain things dont happen always in a guaranteed manner.I also dislike rng, but when its part of reward systems. In combat systems they are needed to some certain extent.

I doubt that combat as thief with more than 1 stolen skill options per class could be so much worser,, it would require of the thief player only more improvisation talent to make the best out of what you receive. You can't also influence against which enemies you fight, its also in PvP and WvW always a little randomness practically involved in every battle you do, there you need also to improvisate with the situation and skilly you receive. Havign then now just a increased pool of options, than before, makes battles not much different then for a Thief You have then only more strategic options of what you can do with your improvisation based on what you received asnd the thief would receive this way a bit more group support possibilities that would be helpful for the thief to have with a stolen Bonfire or a stolen Banner of Discipline.

[DeceiverX.8361]

The improvisation is there. It's choosing how and when to press an advantage you otherwise don't have.

Forcing a swap of weapon sets is just anti-fun, especially if one of the sets used is off-meta, and in the case of non-thief, probably overpowered because they still keep cooldowns. So someone combos a thief and swaps, gets stolen into, and is now forced into AA for another 10s. In the case of thief builds, it's also hyper-cannibalistic because camping a set is a signature part of the thief and you'll be locked out of swapping back. Further, warrior with FH just ignores most of this penalty, anyways.

Also, some of the "bundles" do not force a swap which means your opponent has no idea what to expect to happen to them, which is, again, anti-fun.

I stopped really reading at RNG chances for effects, but the forced swap thing is quite honestly the single most cancerous thing I may have seen suggested yet, particularly due to Acro's steal reset on dodge allowing you to effectively force an opponent out of one of their weapons infinitely by tempo'ing steal every 10s on average.

I'm sorry but this suggestion just reeks of horrid design. Fighting an opponent in this game should be fun. Thief is no exception, and it already isn't. This would be so infuriating I'd probably uninstall so long as it existed in the game.

[Orpheal.8263]

Its just only a different form of "Stun", so I dont know, what your problem with gettign basically your weapon stolen is, because thats actualyl what thieves should do, steal their opponents weapons and its just logical, that if you have gotten your weapon stolen in combatm that you have to switch fro a moment to your other weapon set, until you receive your stolen weapion back..

Its just a proactive tactical move of a thief to weaken his foes, by taking them something away that they use against you to stop them from using it agaist you ...Naturally this can work against a foe only once , meaning you can't take someone both weapon sets temporarely away, otherwise it would become naturally unfair and unfun, there I agree with you.A player, who has been stolen from, will become temporarely immune for the time he has only 1 weapon set left to be targeted by Steal and can be stolen from first again, when he has received his stolen weapon back.Also a Weapon Steal will happen only, if the player is acutally using a stealable weapon, which fits to the SKills you receive as Thief for the Weapon Steal.If you are for example a Shortbow Ranger, stealing from you won#t result in you gettign the Shortbow Stolen, because the Thief has no Shortbow related Steal Skill.But do you run around as a Dagger using Soulbeast instead, your Daggers will be stealable, cause the Thief can have from you the Steal Skill "Stalker's Strike".This means simply, if you are using Weapon Sets, which give the thief no Steal Skills, you are SAFE from getting your weapons stolen, cause the Thief can't steal Weaponds, which give him no Steal Skil land force i nreturn the stolen victom to force switch to their other Weapon Set for that moment.

Forced Weapon Switches is just a different not yet by the game utilized form of Crowd Control, which works just very similar to Daze, but is in fact weaker, cause under daze you can't use for the time you are dazed any weapon skills. The forced weapon switch is just limited only onto the stolen weapon, you are still able to use the weapon skilsl of your other weapon set.And if you play a class which has only 1 single weapon set, you are also totally save from this counterplay as a measurement of class balance. So Elementalists and Engineers don't need to fear thieves in this case as much ,as like specific builds of from the other classes which can have two weapon sets and due to this, can get forced to switch their weapons, if they get 1 weapon temporarely stolen from a thief for a short while.

---

Improvisation is not choosing the moment of when to use a skill.Improvisation is making the best out of something random you received and what you have at the moment to turn a situation to your favor, somethign that you can have only, when the steal skill you receive is not always guaranteed the same item. Cause only then can be improvisation simulated.if you always get the same item, you don't need to improvisate at all, cause if you know already, what you will definetely receive from your Steal, you can make it already part of your Combat Strategy, before you have even used the Steal on your foe.

You may find this being a horrid design, but I give in fact the thief just only, what you should expect from a thief to do and that is stealing the weapon from your foe, to stop them from attacking you with it.That is what i'd expect a true thief to do in combat, what a smart thief would actually do if he just gets the chance to take from his foe their weapon away.If you haven't realized it yet, my whole current concept is based on restoring the identity of the thief profession with full focus on giving thief skills and mechanics that fit to their theme of a thief, what is kind of what you'd list up, if you just ask yourself the simple questions "What does a Thief do?" and "How would a Thief do, what he does actualy in combat to get either for hisself an advantage, or to help others?"

Like said, we are thieves, no fortune tellers, getting always 100% accurately the same item from a steal from a specific class is just completely unrealitic and immersion breaking on top of that, plus it makes certain Steal Skills overpowered, if you can receive them always, without any alternativesIf you are an improvisation talent as a thief player, you won't have any problems with it that there would be 3 possible different Steal Skills instead of 1 always the same Steal Skill.When you know how to improvisate, you will know how to make always the best use of whatever you may receive, regardless if you receive from a foe now always the same item, or 1 out of 3 different possible results,. thats my opinion. Period. it makes no difference, but at least thieves won#t be for other classes totally predictable anymore.

When I play my Mesmer and a Thief steals from me, under the current design I will know instantly, that the Enemy Thief will have soon for a long time all buffs and I need to be prepared for that time when he uses the Glob..Buf if it would be now the case that the Enemy Player could now have from me either a Glob or my Staff or (if I used it at that moment of the Steal), or my Sword, if I used it at that moment, makes the situation less predicable for me, because I can't then be 100% sure anymore, if the thief will just get soon all buffs, or either uses my own staff or my own sword against me next, before I receive my disarmed weapon back, being forced to use meanwhile my other weapon set, shoudl I have used these weapons self, instead of using a GS, or Scepter, or Axe, which aren't stealable, due to the Thief getting no Steal Skill for these Weapons.

[DeceiverX.8361]

It's like a stun if being stunned (or really closer to Daze) for ten seconds. Which is overpowered. It doesn't matter if you may think that it's what it's "supposed" to do. That's downright not fun to play against and absolutely game-breaking.

Not to mention, I do real-life full-contact, full-speed combat with weighted weapons and specialize in knives and daggers. Stealing a weapon is seriously hard to do, and steal in GW2 is not strictly an OOC tool which is literally the only context where it would be plausible for a thief to do so in the real world. A lot of the guys I fight with are serious martial artists and warriors. Trying to steal a held weapon is entirely a test of strength and understanding of the body and comes down to one thing and one thing only: Wrestling and similar techniques (Jiu Jitsu, etc., though this is not feasible into an armed opponent). And that's very far from the thief in GW2. No, what the thief generally steals in GW2 are not weapons but things that its profession may have offhand: A tuft of feathers; a hand-axe or mace dangling from a belt; a pile of goo in a pouch; a healing seed; a skull used in a ritual.

Back to mechanics, if there wasn't burst damage from stealth or sustained stealth or in a number of cases, professions which did not depend on their weapon skills to survive, it could be fun to work once if used out of combat by just forcing the person to swap weapons at the start and not putting it on swap cooldown for the sake of disorienting them. But that would require a huge change to the game and a complete re-design of the thief itself to allow. A great number of players will argue they see the thief more of a sneaky attacker than someone who just steals things.

Any good thief and especially any good player is going to say dependence on RNG is what kills games and takes away the skill. Fire/Air sigils were demanded to get removed from the game by most pro players because the proc was too random for the highest echelon of play. It cannot be calculated. RNG literally brings skilled play down. No top-end player is going to agree with you here and I do not care what the flavor is even if it made sense, which as I've pointed out above, this doesn't. Mechanics and gameplay integrity in this sense trump all.

Improvisation also has nothing to do with randomness, either.Musical definitions aside, the definitions according to Merriam Webster are:

to make, invent, or arrange offhandorto make or fabricate out of what is conveniently on hand

Which requires nothing about randomness. It's about making something work without predefined strategy. I.E.: Not depending on the skill as part of a primary means of killing another player. You know what would achieve that? Denying them a weapon swap. Your definition only applies within the context of the skill itself, not the combat as a whole. Which... if I wanted to be a betting man, real-time PvP would not be what I play.

An improvised play is exactly what I mentioned prior; to engage a fight with a warrior but electing to not use the stolen item because it may not have much immediate value, and then be engaged by a ranger, but then to elect to proceed to disengage from the warrior and kill the ranger by reflecting its rapid fire via the warrior's bundle. Or vice versa, proceed to steal from the ranger and use the water field defensively by combo-finishing it with a leap for heals and cleanses. Or use the whirl finisher on a blind field to blind multiple melee attackers.

A comedian does not do "improvised" comedy by not even being aware he is performing. They don't just randomly get forced to make jokes. They don't do their act by not practicing a few jokes or routines beforehand that can work in a lot of contexts. A musician or group of musicians doing improvised performances knows what instrument they're playing and knows what notes and keys they're playing in as well as the surrounding context of the song. They know their scales and what notes work together which can be applied across the entire instrument. The result of improvising is not determined strictly by randomness, but rather the context of when to improvise, which is exactly what I said above, and it works because they have full knowledge of what's happening around them.

The choice of how to use the ability is the very nature of improvising in this context. The stolen items, aside from gunk and ice shard, are well-desinged in that they do not generally have obvious purposes specific to their respected matchups. A thief can generally use them in a variety of ways depending on their needs which also helps makes them unpredictable, and those means can be quite effective when utilized well.

I'll flip it around:

If a spec had a profession mechanic as a point-and-click ranged ability that made a target unable to use gap closers, teleports, stealth, or immunities and reduced its outgoing damage between 30 and 70% for the next 10s on a 20s cooldown, how fun would that be playing as a thief?

Because that's pretty much what weapon-denial is doing to the other 8.

[Orpheal.8263]

Why do you assume directly, that a forced weapon switch would last for 10 seconds? Nowhere have I said yet, that they would last this long.It is naturally clear, that out of balancing reasons a forced weapon switch should not last same as long as like a normal self decided weapon switch does.I haven't written down anything about this yet, but when we are now at this, I had literally a cooldown time of maximum 5 seconds in mind, until you regain your weapon back to become able to switch back to your weapon that has been stolen from you.5 seconds are enough time to cause disorientation, are enough to give the thief a brief moment of advantage over you, if he can make good usage of it in that short time window. 5 seconds are enough to stop an enemy from bursting you in critical situations to death, giving you the eventual neccessary time to use a heal, before its too late.Anythign above 5 seconds would I agree with you, makes no fun to fight agaisnt and would be overpowered denial... but 5 seconds of a specific weapon denial are absolutely acceptable, especially if you can circumvent that time by playing just defensively, until you get your stolen weapon back.

Also, this is a fantasy MMORPG, not full contact full speed combat real life simutation wars 2We have here Classes that shoot out Fireballs as if it woudl be the most normal thing ever, we have classes here which summon and control the undeads, we have dsimple animals here, which do on command the craziests thigns, that animals in real life would never ever do ... and you have actually problems with theives stealing weapons??Have you never played back in the days when it was popular MMOPGS, like Ragnarok Online? There you also have Thieves/Rogues per see, which are able to disarm and steal the equipment - weapons included in the midsts of a combat to weaken this way their enemies .

You have listed up some good examples of improvisation there, I have to admit, they sound all logic, but we two have some completely different views on the definition of improvisation. There exist different forms of improvisation.What I am talking about, is basically improvisation in engineering, the kind of "Mac Gyver Style Improvisation", where you make the best out of your situation with whatever you get right at hand, so basically with whatever you receive out of a 1 of 3 chance to simulate this way a bit the realism, that you can never know, what you receive from someone, when you steal, otherwise it would be immersion breaking powercreep that lets thieves look like fortune tellers, gettign always 100% accurately the same things.

What you are talking about and what your examples describe there, literally is "applied improvisation" which we see everyday in all kinds of daily life disciplines, like for example your mentioned comedians, which improvise with their listenes, by just interacting with them, making them part of their show, making spontanous jokes here n there that aren't eventually even part of their program, but which just happen out of spontanousy, just because someone of the listeners made out of a sudden maybe something "unpredictable", which is the element of randomness, ancd be is just only laughing in a funny ridiculous way, that awakes the attraction of the comedian to react onto that then with something spontanously., makign the full room laugh then even harder and louder together after that improvised gag from the comedian, that has been added to the random situation which has been caused by an unpredictable act of one listener that nobody can foresse, would happen.

Would the comedian be able to foresee this situation now, then we would have exactly the same situation like what we have now with thieves, which always steal one and the same items, which can practically foresee and know exactly what they get from every steal, before even doing the steal.

[Warkind.6745]

I would have daredevils stop carrying their staffs like hammers.

[Icy.2186]

Combine bound / dash into one, partially, any which way. I dont care if bound gives swiftness or 10% reduced damage / dash is somehow a leap finisher ( daredevil ).But stealthing with heartseeker, dare i say it, in 2k18, is ridiculous.

Heartseeker is the clunkiest ability i have ever used in my entire life, constantly having to dick around with targeting when trying to stealth, its slow ass animation, its very weird tracking onto close targets the way the animation is prolonged when hitting close targets, almost any ranged ability easily tracking you mid heartseeker/stealth, 100% to 0% during blackpowder/heartseeker. If thief was a little less of a bitc class i would use bound specifically because it actually works as a combo stealth tool.

Thief of all the classes and subspecs available right now has the absolutely clunkiest most awkward way of gaining stealth. I like the idea and i have been playing d/p since before daredevil even came out but before that you wouldnt get 100% to 0% MID heartseeker and going into the wrong direction with HS ONCE wasnt instant death either.

1st tl;dr : Ranged burst is so crazy heartseeker is ridiculously unreliable of a tool, tons of abilities tracking stealth movement ( not just ranged ).

Revert dagger chain nerf ( mildly ). You can barely even stand in melee as a thief most of the time and then we still get the dagger chain nerf?

(Not specifically thief but mostly thief ), remove evade spam. Condi thieves spamming evade, im looking at you. Those build types are simply unhealthy for the game from a balance perspective, players mental health perspective and just looking at 100% evadespam makes my retina hurt and makes me wanna vomit so its a health concern too.

Thief is ass. What i mean by that is "core" of what a thief is, before you take any trait line, is awful. Thief is way too squishy in terms of health pool, similar health pool classes ( guardian , elementalist ) by comparison to thief have much much much better survivability through traitlines and abilities. I understand that active evade is part of survivability but as it stands right now, youre either evading an attack or you are on the floor. There is absolutely 0 mitigation on thief in the game and there are way too many 1shot builds / near 1shot combos ( at least when you have an EHP of a thief ).

And then there is trickery. Thiefs base initiation and everything around it is quite literally so bad that were at a point where pvping without trickery is impossible. Literally every build has to have trickery because base ini is terrible, steal on its own without trickery is also terrible.Personal anecdote: Coming back from a 2 year break the only thing i remembered about gw2 and thief was that i remove stabilities, interrupt people and daze with steal.Whats funny is, to me that seemed like base functionality of this great class defying spell ( steal ), but it actually does absolutely none of that without trickery, NOTHING.

2nd tl;dr : Thief traitlines should be looked into, freeing up trickery from being something mandatory in absolutely every pvp ( and some pve ) builds could help thief with a variety of different playstyles that are now able to arise when 1/3rd of your "spec" is not mandatory. And yes it really is mandatory ( figuratively ). Thief base hp pool should be upped a little bit to follow the fact that at the time you can die to a single combo / condi bomb.

Tl;dr of all tl;dr : I dont want thief to be reworked. I dont want another elite spec. I dont want another meme perma evade build. I dont want another meme 3 spam build.I want thief to be less weak, just a little bit less. Because even though i despise deadeye permastealth 1shots, p/p thief 3 spam, perma evade condi aids thieves, because literally every single one of those builds is nothing but a very cheap gimmick thats always played the same in the same way. I really dont blame anyone for taking a dip in the cheese.I just want pvp to not be a competition of which gimmick is the cheesiest.

[DeceiverX.8361]

@Icy.2186 said:Combine bound / dash into one, partially, any which way. I dont care if bound gives swiftness or 10% reduced damage / dash is somehow a leap finisher ( daredevil ).But stealthing with heartseeker, dare i say it, in 2k18, is ridiculous.

I'm really sick of fighting D/P Scaredevil that just camps stealth all day by running BD and extra leaps. I say this as a core D/D thief. Daredevil should not be the fix for problems on core, and to be honest, I think they should remove from all classes the ability to stack stealth and rework SA. It may require for some thieves to actually learn to play, but that's a big QoL update for a lot of problematic builds.

Heartseeker is the clunkiest ability i have ever used in my entire life, constantly having to kitten around with targeting when trying to stealth, its slow kitten animation, its very weird tracking onto close targets the way the animation is prolonged when hitting close targets, almost any ranged ability easily tracking you mid heartseeker/stealth, 100% to 0% during blackpowder/heartseeker. If thief was a little less of a bitc class i would use bound specifically because it actually works as a combo stealth tool.

I take it you haven't used Kneel or tried to cancel it. HS is butter-smooth in comparison. HS is a melee skill and thus has a hitbox throughout its cast, so don't use it immediately into an enemy or if an enemy is on top of you. All outgoing casts track stealth if made prior to gaining stealth. LoS or just work on your timing better. BP+HS has counterplay like all major defenses like stealth should.

A lot of your post reeks of L2P but I agree a removal of gimmick builds would be nice. But I've been offering suggestions for how to fix those for years. A lot of bigger sweeping changes need to happen to the thief to get its weapon skills and trait lines right. And I genuinely don't think ANet will put in the long-overdue effort.

[Icy.2186]

@"DeceiverX.8361" said:

I take it you haven't used Kneel or tried to cancel it. HS is butter-smooth in comparison. HS is a melee skill and thus has a hitbox throughout its cast, so don't use it immediately into an enemy or if an enemy is on top of you. All outgoing casts track stealth if made prior to gaining stealth. LoS or just work on your timing better. BP+HS has counterplay like all major defenses like stealth should.

A lot of your post reeks of L2P but I agree a removal of gimmick builds would be nice. But I've been offering suggestions for how to fix those for years. A lot of bigger sweeping changes need to happen to the thief to get its weapon skills and trait lines right. And I genuinely don't think ANet will put in the long-overdue effort.

I do agree that is an l2p issue, however i disagree that is a way to disregard clear issues here. An ability being ridiculously clunky and losing a lot of functionality should not be countered by "l2p." Sure every issue regarding hs can be countered by playing incredibly carefully but why are we so accepting of the innate clunkyness? Just accept the struggle of using a simple ability that doesnt behave the same way twice?

I'm really sick of fighting D/P Scaredevil that just camps stealth all day by running BD and extra leaps. I say this as a core D/D thief. Daredevil should not be the fix for problems on core, and to be honest, I think they should remove from all classes the ability to stack stealth and rework SA. It may require for some thieves to actually learn to play, but that's a big QoL update for a lot of problematic builds.

I do agree that stealth in general might be a rather weird concept but more often than not, builds with stealth stack rely on stealth. Deadeyes walking around unstealthed are food and not oponents, they still shouldnt have a 100% uptime on stealth though ( imo ).The way i see it, so many builds right now rely on a very cheesy gimmick ( perma evade, perma stealth, long stealth + health recovery ) that removing the cheese at their core will most likely break the build. But it should still happen, adding more balance with gimmicks being considered a core of a build is just unhealthy from a balance perspective and from a gameplay perspective. However those builds should get something as a compensation considering how everything seems to be spiraling out of control in terms of relative strength and crutches. If evadespam is removed from builds that rely on evadespam something, perhaps, more interactive should be introduced ( as an example ).

[bq pd.2148]

@DeceiverX.8361 said:I'm really sick of fighting D/P Scaredevil that just camps stealth all day by running BD and extra leaps. I say this as a core D/D thief. Daredevil should not be the fix for problems on core, and to be honest, I think they should remove from all classes the ability to stack stealth and rework SA. It may require for some thieves to actually learn to play, but that's a big QoL update for a lot of problematic builds.

removing stackable stealth and reworking SA , will make thieves that do not know how to play as you think actually stronger in alot of cases IMO.because going in and out of stealth to gain SA benefits would be alot stronger then currently stacking stealth. if i need to now stay stealthed for 9 seconds to clear 4 dmg conditions but with that they instantly get removed for entering stealth, gain a resilliance of shadows buff for entering or leaving stealth, gain like 1k hp and 2 ini on enterin stealth etc, then i can keep up the preassure while benefiting from insane SA defense.stacking stealth might be an issue in prestack into oneshot scenario, but after inital engage builds that rely on stealthing for extended periods are really weak as you wont preassure any opponent and cant capture anything in sPvP / WvW while remaining in stealth.i personally use alot of stealth to handle groups of a size that one solo shouldnt approach normally with another build and to remain in keeps in WvW and kill people who go too far away from their mates. during the actual fight i benefit little from SA, i benefit from it in between the fights. but i can do that because most people in WvW are that bad you dont need 3 traitlines to kill them. it would be alot easier to kill good people in a 1 vs 1 without SA IMO. so removing stealth stacking and changing SA would strip me of the option to avoid larger groups without leaving the area in WvW, but for actually fighting single opponents that would probably buff me alot. thing is then i can play just any other classes because 1 vs 1 are rarely an issue. i allways get back to thief when i fight a few times in a row 1 vs too many on an other class.but the mentality that everyone using alot of stealth doesnt know what they are doing is pretty wide spread, while the ones having an issue with it often dont even know any way to counter stealth stacking or try to use it, they dont even use their interrupts specifically to avoid me going into stealth - very few people do that on purpose.

[jujoco.4853]

Wew where to begin.... I'd say the entire class needs a massive overhaul, however they see fit. I initially picked thief up because of the "deadly 1 v 1 combatant". Sadly that line is far... faaaaar from the truth. You can barely kill anything in 1 v 1. Other than that their dps in pve is extremely subpar for a class which can pretty much only bring damage to the team, no real support / utility to speak of. Only thing you have is stealth and no one gives a hoot.

[uraldum.8513]

I'd give CnD a trait or passively allow it to teleport to targets from a short distance.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

rework Shadow trap to make it actually work instead of semi porting you back

[DemonSeed.3528]

@Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:rework Shadow trap to make it actually work instead of semi porting you back

Is that happening for you within the 10k range? If you are out of that it will only port short distance but towards direction of the trap. I'll try testing again to see if it falls short of the trap within range.

[MithranArkanere.8957]

Oh. And now I would also rework Stealth mainly in two ways:

• Change the way revealed works to prevent accidentally being revealed when an ally gives you stealth because you could not stop a projectile you just fired, and to build up when dealing or ticking conditions on enemies so it can't be used to hide for too long while large stacks of conditions tick on enemies.
• Also change it so some skills can make it last indefinitely, but it can no longer be stacked, and it only provides full invisibility for a very short time, like 2-3 seconds. Past that time a thief would be partially visible until they use a stealth skill again. Some skills would also make affected players unrevealable by enemy skills the first 1 second after entering stealth, but they would still be revealed by their own attacks.

Something like this.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

@DemonSeed.3528 said:

@Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:rework Shadow trap to make it actually work instead of semi porting you back

Is that happening for you within the 10k range? If you are out of that it will only port short distance but towards direction of the trap. I'll try testing again to see if it falls short of the trap within range.

it will depending on terrain. sometimes you need direct line of sight...good luck having a straight line 100% of the time at half that in pvp maps. this is why i mentioned in another thread to make it ignore such things like Phase Traversal does on revenant...that and Phase Traversal STILL ports you as close as possible AT MAX RANGE if out of range.